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Photo by Ann Wright. Only section of Gurombi rocks left.

The international community is extraordinarily concerned about
the Chinese construction on small islands and atolls in disputed waters off
China, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan. Over the past 18 months, the Chinese
government has created islands out of atolls and larger islands out of small
ones. With the Obama administration’s “pivot” of the United States
military and economic strategy to Asia and the Pacific, the Chinese have seen
military construction in their front yard.

I’ve just returned from my third trip to Jeju Island, South
Korea. Jeju is called the Island of Peace. However, it's where the South
Korean military has almost finished construction of a new naval base, the first
military base on this strategically located island south of the mainland of
Korea that is littered with US and South Korean military bases, leftover from
the Korean war, and that are now a part of the US “defense” of South Korea
from “aggression” from North Korea.

The Jeju Island naval base will be the homeport for ships that
carry the US Aegis missiles. Many on the island call it a US naval
base since it will be a key part of the U.S. “pivot” to Asia and the worldwide
U.S. missile defense system. They believe that the naval base will be used as
frequently by U.S. warships as by South Korean ships and submarines. With
a naval base on Jeju Island, they believe that Jeju Island becomes a
target should military hostilities breakout in Asia and the Pacific.

The naval base was built in the pristine waters off Gangjeong
Village midst seven years of intense civic outrage. The destruction
of the marine environment off the village where the famous women divers for
decades have harvested by hand the “fruits of the sea” is one of the cultural
and economic losses the construction of the naval base has caused.

The destruction by huge dynamite explosions of a unique geologic
rock formation called “Gureombi” is a cultural and spiritual loss to the
islanders. Its tide pools, crystal clear springs and lava rock formations
made “Guremobi” a favorite area for villagers and visitors to the island.

The construction of the naval base in spite of strong local
opposition is a part of the history of oppression of the people of Jeju Island
from the mainland government. After the Korean War, South Korean and United
States military forces which conducted the infamous April 3
massacres of over 30,000 islanders who were believed to be opposed to the right
wing Singman Rhee government, dissidents and sympathizers for reunification of
Korea. The April 3 “incident” left a deep scar on
the people of Jeju Island and made them very sensitive to mainland government
policies, particularly those which target them again.

The South Korean government has built the naval base in one of
the most inhospitable areas of Jeju Island. The naval base faces the open
ocean and has already been battered by two typhoons which have displaced huge
concrete cassions which form the foundation of the quarter mile breakwater
created to protect the base from the sea. The government attempted to put
the base at two more favorable geographic locations on Jeju Island but were
deterred by citizens who successfully refused to allow the base to be
constructed in their part of the island.

Despite large and continuing protests in Gangjeong village
against the construction of the naval base, the South Korean national
government, reportedly with intense pressure from the United States, decided that
it had to begin construction somewhere on the island and chose to ignore the
strong local opposition.

However, the decision has come at a great cost to the national
government. Daily demonstrations and frequent large demonstrations with
planeloads of mainlanders flying into help islanders, have resulted in the
government having to deploy hundreds of police from the mainland to counter the
demonstrations. Local police on Jeju Island are felt to have too much
sympathy for the demonstrations and therefore police from the mainland are
needed. Islanders see this as an historic throwback to the April 3, 1948
oppression of opposition to mainland government policies.

Each day at Gangjeong village begins with a 7am
demonstration of 100 bows at the front gate of the naval base. Protesters block one lane of the base forcing a slowdown of traffic of concrete
trucks and other vehicles entering the base. For almost an hour, the
demonstrators silently offer thoughts on the militarization of their island as
they bow or kneel. At 11am Catholic priests and
laywomen conduct a daily mass across from the front gate as other priests and
activists sit in chairs blocking both lanes into and out of the base.
Every twenty minutes, a platoon of young police men and women march into the seated
protesters and carry the chair and the person sitting in it to the side of the
road, opening the road for traffic for five minutes. Then the police
march back into the base and the protesters immediately move their chairs back
to block the lanes into the base. After an hour of blocking the entrance, the
protest ends with an energetic dance—and traffic resumes. Long time
activists recognize that the hour protest is a small delay in the construction
of the base, but consider the two daily protests as extremely important actions
to remind the national government of their continuing opposition to the
military base.

My first visit to Jeju Island was in 2011. At that time,
activists still had their camp on the Guremobi rocks on the edge of the
ocean. The camp consisted of a long educational tent, a sleeping tent and
a cook and eating tent. Every day activists would conduct workshops and
ceremonies on the rocks.

When I returned in 2013, despite the intense efforts of the
activists, the Guremobi rock formation had been blown up with dynamic and
construction had begun with two huge facilities built on the remains of the
rocks to create the massive concrete caissons that would be lowered into the
ocean to form the quarter mile long breakwater to protect the base from the
open ocean.

Returning two years later in 2015 with eight women from the
Women Cross the DMZ walk www.womencrossdmz, including Nobel Peace laureate
Mairead Maguire and CODEPINK co-founder Medea Benjamin, I was devastated to see
the vastness of the naval base which is nearing completion. Although statistics
on the amount of concrete that has been poured into the ocean and into the
buildings on the base are unavailable, the sheer scale of the base leads one to
guess that a road around the world could have been built with that volume of
concrete.

Photo by Ann Wright. Jeju Island Naval Base Huge Breakwater

And it's not just on the base itself that construction has
proceeded. As villagers suspected from the beginning, the base would
expand into other parts of the community. More land near the base is now
being condemned by the government so it can be used to build housing for
military personnel and their families.

After seven years of large protests against the construction of
the military base, the base has been built - and the Chinese know it as they have
watched the construction - up close - as, remarkably, the South Korean government
allows Chinese tourists to visit Jeju Island without a visa. The Chinese
tourist trade is large - as is the purchase of land by Chinese on Jeju
Island. A big area on Jeju Island is now a Chinese “health” vacation area
with condos and other facilities for Chinese - even the road signs in the area
are in Chinese!

The Chinese are watching another construction project in the
Pacific. This time a United States military base on the southern Japanese
island of Okinawa. Despite massive Okinawan opposition, including a visit
in May 2015 of the governor of Okinawa to Washington, DC, the U.S. is planning
to begin expansion of Camp Schwab, a US Marine Corps base and construction of
an airfield runway on Okinawa. The runway will project out into the South
China Sea into pristine waters with endangered coral formations and into the
habitat of the dugong, a manatee-like marine mammal. Okinawa makes up 1%
of Japan’s land mass but is the location of 74% of all U.S. military bases in
Japan.

Okinawans have been protesting for years the expansion of Camp
Schwab, a US Marine Base. Only last month, over 35,000 Okinawans
gathered to voice their opposition to their national government’s approval of
the base despite the opposition of all levels of the Okinawan provincial
government and island civil society.

In 2007, I visited the activists on Okinawa at their seaside
camp where they have a daily presence to remind the U.S. military that they do
not want the naval base. The senior citizens of the village of Henoko
moved their center to the beach so they could participate each
day in attempting to preserve their village from another military base.

The Chinese have been watching the process for the building of
another US base in the Pacific, as they have watched the expansion of US military
forces on the US territory of Guam. The projected increase in US
military personnel and their families is expected to increase the population of
the small Micronesian island by thirty percent.

In another interesting economic considerations versus foreign
policy posturing between sparing countries, Russian tourists to Guam do not
need a visa to the United States to visit the island.

The bottom line is that the Chinese see the expansion of the
United States military forces and capabilities in their front yard, and are
constructing their own projections of power on the tiny disputed islands and
atolls off their coast. Neither the US nor China need any of
these bases as both have more than enough air capability in the form of aircraft
or missiles to initiate or counter any military move by the other.

All of this construction is another example of the never ending,
massively expensive war mindset of political leaders and their financial
backers who profit from a hostile world.

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